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To make south Louisiana’s oil and gas infrastructure more resilient to extreme weather, Entergy Louisiana wants to build a $441 million floating natural gas power plant as the land around it continues to vanish from a combination of sinking and sea-level rise.
A top Louisiana utility consumer advocate noted the “loop of irony” of adding even more greenhouse gasses to a region already suffering massive land loss because of climate change.
Entergy says the plant is necessary because in 2020, Hurricane Zeta took out a major transmission line serving the area, according to its filing with the Louisiana Public Service Commission. The company says the plant would be cheaper than building a new transmission line through wetlands and marshes, and it would not be “prudent or economic” to buy power on the open market. The company did not provide the cost to replace its downed transmission line.
Entergy Louisiana says its proposed 112-megawatt Bayou Power Station could disconnect from the grid and use the plant’s power to provide electricity to 7,000 residential, industrial and commercial including Port Fourchon, the Louisiana Offshore Oil Port and residents in Golden Meadow, Leeville and Grand Isle. The power station would have black-start capability — or the ability to rapidly start up and ramp down without being connected to other parts of the energy grid.
“This Project will directly address critical oil and gas customers in the system at Port Fourchon,” Entergy’s filing to the PSC. “The interconnection of the Project will add a resilient power source to the (Entergy Louisiana) grid and enable storm restoration options, following a significant weather event.”
The promises being made mirror those its sister company, Entergy New Orleans, used to convince the New Orleans City Council to approve a 128-MW natural gas plant in eastern New Orleans that came online in 2020. Entergy New Orleans said the $210 million plant would come online quickly after a storm to provide the city with power.
But that didn’t happen. After Hurricane Ida struck in August 2021, the entire city went dark, and it took almost three days for the New Orleans gas plant to become operational. The utility said using the plant’s quick-start capability wasn’t the safest way to restore power to the city.
“And so the question now is why should the Louisiana Public Service Commission approve (Bayou Power Station) seeing what happened only a handful of years ago,” asked Logan Atkinson Burke, executive director of the Alliance for Affordable Energy.
Burke noted the Bayou Power Station would cost twice as much as the New Orleans plant and produce less electricity.
The power generation portion of the project is estimated at $374.3 million, or roughly $3,318 per kilowatt, an amount twice as much as most other power generation costs, according to the federal Energy Information Administration. If the Public Service Commission approves the plant, the costs would trickle down to all of Entergy Louisiana’s 1.1 million customers through increased rates and charges.
In addition to approval of the plant within 120 days, Entergy has asked the PSC for permission to bypass the competitive bid process and hand the contract to its preselected contractor, Grand Isle Shipyards.
“An RFP (request for proposals) wouldn’t have produced a more qualified vendor at a better cost,” said David Freese, a spokesman for Entergy Louisiana. The plant would be built at the company’s shipyard and moved to Leeville for installation.
Before it narrowed its options, Entergy also considered combined-cycle gas turbines, solar and simple-cycle combustion turbines, Freese said. Offshore wind was not considered because of the costs of building a transmission line to the offshore turbines, the intermittent nature of wind and the potential impact of hurricanes on those turbines, he said.
Coastal researcher Alex Kolker, an associate professor at the Louisiana Universities Marine Consortium who specializes in oceanography, geology and climate science, said the region is prone to storms and extreme weather that is being made more intense by climate change.
Utility consumer advocate Burke said it appears the company is doubling down on its reliance on fossil fuels, ignoring the inherent climate risks.
“It’s very clear that we are in a in a loop of irony at this point where the hotter it gets, the more water there is, and the less land there is as a result of oil and gas extraction, all while Louisiana is so interconnected to those international oil and gas systems,” Burke said. “So we ‘need’ to build something that is incredibly vulnerable in a place that is vulnerable because of oil and gas.”
Floodlight is a nonprofit newsroom that investigates the powerful interests stalling climate action.
CLIMATE: Bucks County, Pennsylvania, sues top fossil fuel producers, alleging they’ve known for decades that their products were driving climate change. (NBC Philadelphia)
UTILITIES:
OFFSHORE WIND:
LITHIUM: Advocates want to see more environmental considerations in Maine’s proposed rules that would allow mining in a recently discovered lithium deposit. (Portland Press Herald)
ELECTRIC VEHICLES:
CLEAN ENERGY:
ENVIRONMENTAL JUSTICE: Maryland environmental justice communities say a proposed state bill doesn’t cover some of the biggest sources of air pollution affecting their neighborhoods. (Baltimore Sun)
FOSSIL FUELS: Small oil and gas drillers say Pennsylvania’s proposed hike in bond costs, meant to ensure companies don’t abandon wells, could drive them out of business. (Tribune-Democrat)
SOLAR:
EMISSIONS: An Israeli company looks to build a trash-to-plastic plant in Massachusetts, which it says would help reduce landfill methane emissions. (Boston Globe)
GEOTHERMAL: Texas is emerging as a hotspot for geothermal energy exploration, with scores of former oil industry workers and executives seeking to use their knowledge of geology, drilling, and extraction to tap into a new energy source. (Texas Tribune)
OFFSHORE WIND:
OIL & GAS:
PIPELINES: A Virginia couple who have fought the Mountain Valley Pipeline for a decade talk about the grief, fear, and anger of having to live next to the project for the last six years. (West Virginia Public Broadcasting)
POLITICS: A bill awaiting signature from Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis would ban offshore wind energy, relax natural gas pipeline rules, and eliminate most mentions of climate change from existing state laws. (Grist)
GRID: Texas’ grid operator says it underestimated how fast San Antonio would grow, leaving the region with transmission issues that “could lead to cascading outages” and put the statewide grid at risk. (San Antonio Express-News)
SOLAR:
OVERSIGHT: A bill awaiting signature by Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp would extend the length of state utility regulators’ six-year terms by another two years. (Union Recorder)
TRANSPORTATION: Drivers of fuel-efficient and electric vehicles in Virginia say they are being penalized with higher vehicle registration fees. (WAVY)
INDUSTRY:
COMMENTARY: In a “reality check” on small nuclear reactors, a Virginia editor says the best site for one is likely at an existing nuclear power plant, but that it’s up to utilities and regulators — not the governor — to decide. (Cardinal News)
GEOTHERMAL: Geothermal power could help plug solar and wind power’s intermittency gaps, but experts say first scientists and developers need to unlock next-generation technologies that make it easier and cheaper to harness the earth’s heat. (Canary Media)
ALSO: Texas is emerging as a hotspot for geothermal energy exploration, with scores of former oil industry workers and executives seeking to use their knowledge of geology, drilling, and extraction to tap into a new energy source. (Texas Tribune)
CLEAN ENERGY:
CLIMATE:
OIL & GAS:
ELECTRIC VEHICLES:
STORAGE: The U.S. added 4,235 MW of new energy storage capacity in the last quarter of 2023, more than doubling additions in the previous quarter. (Utility Dive)
OFFSHORE WIND: New London, Connecticut, residents welcome federal incentives for offshore wind facilities, saying the first wave of wind workers are already boosting local businesses. (WTNH)
GRID: Grid operators want federal regulators to reject the North American Electric Reliability Corp.’s proposed cold weather reliability standards for power plants, saying they will only lead to more costly reliability issues in the future. (Utility Dive)
Two bills that would expand the public’s access to shared solar in Virginia are awaiting a signature from Republican Gov. Glenn Youngkin.
Shared solar is a program in which solar developers allow people who may be unable to install solar panels on their property to pay a subscription fee to receive energy from their facility. The facilities must generate no more than five megawatts.
The program was created for Dominion Energy customers in 2022 to give property owners whose roofs are unsuitable to hold panels, or who reside on lots that don’t garner enough sunlight to produce electricity, the option of using renewable energy.
But the program was limited to just 150 megawatts of electricity and required a minimum bill charge to cover the costs for distribution and transmission services; low-income subscribers were exempt from paying.
As a result, two years since the program was created, only low-income subscribers have signed up for the program.
This year’s bills would increase the number of projects allowable under the shared solar program in Dominion territory, and also add measures that could lower the minimum charge. A separate bill would create a shared solar program in Appalachian Power Company territory throughout Southwest Virginia.
Del. Rip Sullivan, who carried this year’s bill to change the Dominion program, said the initial iteration of the shared solar program brought “ solar developers who were not in Virginia into Virginia,” which created job and improved access to renewable energy sources in the state. Sen. Scott Surovell, D-Fairfax, carried the companion to Sullivan’s bill, and the measure to start Appalachian Power’s program.
In his 2022 energy plan, Youngkin called for removing barriers to smaller solar projects being spread throughout the grid, “including shared solar.”
“The Governor is closely reviewing the legislation and budget language sent to his desk,” Youngkin spokesman Christian Martinez said. “As stated in the All-American, All-of-the-Above Energy Plan, he believes in commonsense energy policy, including flexibility in our laws and regulations to meet the accelerated energy demands of Virginians and foster innovative energy solutions.”
According to filings with Dominion’s regulators at the State Corporation Commission, Dominion’s shared solar program reached capacity in May of last year.
The commission is allowed to expand the program by an additional 50 megawatts, once determining at least 30% of them, or 45 megawatts, have been claimed by low-income customers. But a case with regulators to decide that expansion is still pending.
Originally, this year’s bills would have expanded the program to allow for far more megawatts equal to 10% of Dominion’s peak load, but they were scaled back, allowing the program to increase to 200 megawatts. There’s also an opportunity for an additional energy boost.
Once they determine that customers have subscribed to 90% of that 200 megawatts, the commission can expand the program by an additional 150 megawatts, according to the legislation, with up to half of that expansion serving low-income customers.
“Where we ended up, we view it as incremental progress to continuing to move the market forward,” said Charlie Coggeshall, mid-atlantic regional director of the Coalition for Community Solar Access, a group that advocates for shared solar use. “It was a lot of negotiating to find a place where we were comfortable. It says a lot that we achieved a major compromise.”
The other change the bill would bring to the Dominion program is language that orders the SCC to “calculate the benefits of shared solar to the electric grid and to the Commonwealth and deduct such benefits from other costs,” to determine the minimum bill.
As it stands now, the minimum bill — typically $55.10 — is necessary, Dominion says, to cover the cost of the grid’s distribution and transmission services to deliver electricity from the shared solar facilities that may be miles away from the user.
Without the minimum bill, the shared solar subscribers see reductions in their bill from using renewable energy while other customers pay to maintain the grid, the utility has argued.
But that typical $55.10 amount is a barrier to people subscribing to shared solar since it will negate any possible energy savings, said Southern Environmental Law Center staff attorney Josephus Allmond, unless affluent people have the means for it, which is “certainly not the majority of Virginians.”
The bill also includes language to conduct an analysis of other benefits, including the renewable energy credits, or RECs, that the solar project developers will have to give to Dominion, which must purchase them to meet renewable energy portfolio standards in the Virginia Clean Economy Act.
A report from CSSA released ahead of the session found that the utility and ratepayers could see savings from an expanded shared solar program, in part, by reducing the need to build new generation sources.
“Also, solar energy produces few externalities like cancer, pollution, climate change,” Surovell said. “All those benefits need to be calculated into reducing the minimum bill.”
Though the bill passed out of the legislature, some opposition came from some lawmakers, like Sen. Mark Obenshain, R-Rockingham, who argued the new minimum bill calculation is “still shifting to the rate base benefits that are just impossible to quantify,” such as climate change.
Katharine Bond, Dominion vice president for public policy & state affairs, said in testimony on earlier versions of the bill the utility had a concern over seeing the projects in the first trench of the program getting completed before expanding it. But in a Feb. 9 Senate Commerce and Labor Committee, Bond stated the utility’s support for the bill, noting that the bill had language stating the SCC will determine shared solar participants ”pay their fare share and minimize the cost shift to non-participating customers.”
A workgroup to determine the amount and form of incentives for shared solar projects that can be built on rooftops, or on previously disturbed lands like former coal mines called brownfields is another provision that emerged this session. Bills separate from Sullivan and Surovell’s that would expand those incentives are now awaiting signature from the governor.
“We think these small projects are just what we should be looking at more to preserve prime farmland and forestland,” said Allmond in committee testimony.
The separate bill from Surovell creates an entirely new program for Appalachian Power Company with a cap of 50 megawatts.
Peter Anderson, director of state energy policy at the environmental nonprofit Appalachian Voices, echoed sentiments similar to Coggeshall in response to the bill’s passage.
“People in Southwest Virginia have already waited too long for access to shared solar, and the establishment of a program will provide proof of concept and something to build on,” Anderson said.
There will be a minimum bill in the Appalachian Power program, the amount of which the SCC will have to determine as it does with the Dominion program ,while including the new calculations. But one difference with the APCo program is that low-income customers are not exempt from that cost and will instead receive a 10% discount.
“We would have preferred a larger program and a minimum bill exemption in the new APCo program to really signal that every Virginian can benefit from these smaller, distributed solar facilities,” Anderson said. His group is aware of a number of APCo customers who are interested in the program, he said, as well as at least one nonprofit that will consider a subscription and local governments who have spoken up about the program.
Without the low-income exemption, Coggeshall said, “it just places all pressure on the minimum bill proceeding” to determine if subscribing is a viable option for participants, but his group is still excited by the progress.
Appalachian Power is “pleased” with the bill, utility spokeswoman Teresa Hall stated, adding the cost shifting was a concern for the company.
“The minimum bill is critical to ensure that shared solar participants pay for their share of the grid, so that these costs aren’t shifted to other ratepayers,” said Hall. “Ultimately, if the costs of clean energy initiatives aren’t fairly distributed we will not be able to achieve our goals.”
Virginia Mercury is part of States Newsroom, a nonprofit news network supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Virginia Mercury maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor Samantha Willis for questions: info@virginiamercury.com. Follow Virginia Mercury on Facebook and Twitter.
GRID: National Grid announces a $4 billion plan to upgrade its upstate New York power grid, with new substations and rebuilt power lines among its 6-year plan. (Utility Dive)
ALSO: Several hundred thousand New England residents lost power during severe storms over the weekend, and more than 100,000 remained in the dark Monday morning. (NBC Boston, WMTW)
OFFSHORE WIND:
UTILITIES:
POLICY:
SOLAR: Westmoreland County, Pennsylvania’s housing authority seeks county funding to help build a solar farm that could power a low-income senior apartment complex and other county facilities. (TribLive)
CLEAN ENERGY: The Massachusetts Clean Energy Center awards $2.5 million for projects across the state, including a solar panel recycling project and a biogas production system. (Worcester Business Journal)
HYDROGEN:
ELECTRIC VEHICLES: Rhode Island considers replacing its gas tax with a mileage-based user fee to combat an expected drop in revenue as electric vehicles replace combustion cars. (EcoRI)
CLIMATE: Maryland’s chief resilience officer says climate issues pose the biggest challenge to the state’s stability, with rising floods, worsening storms and growing heat among his biggest concerns. (Inside Climate News)
COMMENTARY:
EFFICIENCY: Volunteers with a Virginia climate group partner with four nonprofits to encourage their low-income clients to register for no-cost energy efficiency upgrades. (Energy News Network)
OIL & GAS: The specter of South Carolina’s $9 billion failed construction of a nuclear plant looms over new efforts by Dominion Energy and state-owned utility Santee Cooper to build a natural gas-fired power plant. (Post and Courier)
SOLAR:
CLEAN ENERGY:
NUCLEAR: Kentucky lawmakers unanimously pass legislation to prep the state for nuclear energy development, but clarify they see nuclear power as a complement and not replacement for coal. (Associated Press)
HYDROGEN: Texas boosters hype hydrogen as a clean fuel option for transportation companies, but critics warn that making it by using fossil fuels will further strengthen the oil and gas industry. (Texas Tribune)
WIND: Federal officials plan to auction leases for offshore wind in the Gulf of Mexico in four locations that are smaller than initially planned, but larger than last year’s auction. (NOLA.com)
GRID:
OVERSIGHT: Georgia lawmakers pass legislation to increase state energy regulators’ terms from six to eight years, as a long-running legal case that halted elections for the offices appears to be nearing a conclusion. (Associated Press)
CARBON CAPTURE: Louisiana State University plans to drill a well on campus to test carbon capture technology. (KTBS)
COMMENTARY: The natural gas industry’s promise to generate economic prosperity in Appalachia never came to pass even during times of booming output, and efforts to build a hydrogen hub will likely suffer the same fate while continuing to defile the land, writes a climate activist. (Parkersburg News and Sentinel)
EMISSIONS: The U.S. Energy Department announces $6 billion for 33 industrial decarbonization projects, including electrification at Kraft Heinz facilities and a carbon capture and storage system at a cement plant. (Associated Press)
OVERSIGHT: Senators question President Biden’s three Federal Energy Regulatory Commission nominees about the body’s authority, their past stances on natural gas, and other issues in a confirmation hearing. (Utility Dive)
ELECTRIC VEHICLES: Detroit automakers face a “very big balancing act” in the coming months and years as they attempt to match electric vehicle investments with anticipated consumer demand. (Bridge)
GRID:
OIL & GAS:
OFFSHORE WIND:
EFFICIENCY:
HYDROGEN: The U.S. Treasury Department today will hold the first public hearing on its proposed hydrogen tax credit. (E&E News, subscription)
COMMENTARY:
SOLAR: Federal officials will spend $475 million to fund five clean energy projects on current or former mining lands across the country, including $90 million for Pennsylvania’s Clearfield County, where a former coal mining area is slated to become a 402 MW solar field. (news release, electrek, WHYY)
ALSO:
OFFSHORE WIND:
POLICY: Pennsylvania’s governor is going to need Republican buy-in to form his newly proposed Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative alternative. (Spotlight PA)
GRID: In Connecticut, United Illuminating plans to build a replacement to the Pequonnock substation five feet above federal 100-year flood estimates and further from the shore to avoid storm outages. (News 12)
BUILDINGS:
HYDROGEN: A Delaware newspaper recounts what is currently known about the development of the Mid Atlantic Hydrogen Hub, although few firm details are available. (Delaware News Journal)
UTILITIES: If New York legislators can’t pass a bill to arrange a vote on whether to transition the Long Island Power Authority into a fully public utility, contracted operator PSEG might have its deal extended. (Newsday)
CLIMATE: Philadelphia’s Drexel University launches a new research center focused on policymaking that protects city dwellers from the health and equity impacts of climate change. (WHYY)
COMMENTARY: A founding faculty member of Syracuse University’s energy program writes New York will need a massive amount of lithium to reach its energy storage and electric vehicle adoption goals, though there’s no real strategy to recycle the material. (Syracuse.com)
GRID: Texas regulators approve rules governing a new $5 billion energy fund that the state will loan to companies to build new natural gas-fired power plants. (San Antonio Express-News)
ALSO:
OIL & GAS:
TRANSITION:
SOLAR:
CARBON CAPTURE: A company breaks ground on a direct air carbon capture plant in Texas, part of the leading edge of new technology the oil and gas industry is relying on to reduce its emissions, though critics say it’s too costly and energy-intensive. (Yale360)
ELECTRIFICATION: Austin, Texas, looks to revamp its “cash for clunkers” equipment recycling program to encourage residents and landscaping businesses to trade in gas-powered lawnmowers, leaf blowers and weed trimmers for electric models. (Austin Monitor)
POLITICS:
COMMENTARY:
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